Afterlight

by Alex Scarrow

  Maxwell looked sceptical. ‘All this cabling . . . you’re telling me all this . . . for just a couple of hours of light?’

  ‘A couple of hours of light, sometimes less. But not any more. We had an accident. There was an explosion several months ago. I’m not even sure we’ll ever get it working again.’

  She noticed, over Maxwell’s shoulder, the boys keenly listening to the shouted exchange. She could see them looking at each other, whispering.

  ‘Maxwell,’ she said, raising her hoarse voice a little more to be certain all the boys were hearing her loud and clear. ‘Is that what you’ve been promising those kids? Unlimited electricity?’

  The man seemed momentarily stumped for a reply.

  ‘Because you’re a terrible fool if you did. All we’ve got here is what little we manage to grow. You’d have been far better staying wherever you came from.’

  Maxwell put out his hands, as if trying to hush her voice. ‘No, course not. This is—’

  She laughed. ‘You did, didn’t you? You stupid fucking idiot!’ She leaned to one side to address the boys directly. ‘There’s no gas or oil here! There’s no power! He led you here for nothing!!’

  ‘Shit!’ snapped Maxwell, lowering his voice. ‘Shut up!’

  ‘You wasted your time, lads!’ she called out again. ‘You stupid idiots! There’s no power here! No lights! There’s nothing!! This man is a fool!’

  Maxwell turned away from Jenny to face his praetorians. He sighed. ‘All right, boys, maybe she’s right. We’ll find out for sure soon enough. But we’re here now, aren’t we? And we’re nearly done. Over there are several hundred new women for you to enjoy. So let’s get on with it, boys. You can have a couple of days’ fun, then we’ll grab everything worth taking. And I suggest we head back to Felixstowe. What do you say to that? Hmm? Who knows how many more containers of grog we’ll find there?’

  Snoop emerged from amongst the crowd of praetorians and stepped onto the walkway. Maxwell glanced at him and smiled. ‘What do you reckon, Edward? That sound like a plan?’

  ‘Sounds like a really shit plan, Chief,’ he replied.

  Maxwell’s eyes narrowed and then he nodded. ‘Oh, I see, and this is the point where you’ve finally decided to take charge of the praetorians, is it?’

  Snoop said nothing.

  ‘You know absolutely nothing, Edward. You’re still just a child. A big boy who knows nothing more than the dome. What? So you’re going to take charge now? Find food for these boys? Care for them? Plan for them? Educate them? Are you that organised, Edward?’

  Snoop shrugged. ‘I know enough that we can’t just live on the shit we find in containers for ever. Or did you think I was too stupid to figure that out for myself?’ Snoop turned round to face the boys. ‘The shit out there ain’t going to last for ever. You boys know that, right?’

  ‘Edward! Give it a fucking rest, will you?’ snapped Maxwell.

  ‘Our shit can’t jus’ be one party night after another. You gettin’ that, right? You all figured out the party’s gotta end one day?’

  Some of the boys glanced at each other.

  ‘Edward!’

  ‘Well,’ continued Snoop. ‘The shit needs to change, or one day we end up like them fuckin’ London wild kids an—’

  ‘Edward! SHUT UP!’

  ‘Or what?’ He spun round. ‘You gonna’ do what, fool?’

  ‘You’ll be kicked out, that’s what! Kicked out of the praetorians. I’ll make . . . I’ll make Jay-zee my new top dog!’ He leaned round Snoop and addressed the cluster of faces watching events from the far end of the walkway. ‘You hear that? How’s that sound, Jay-zee? You want to be my new top dog?!’

  He looked back at Snoop. ‘Now why don’t you shut up and let me finish what I’m—’

  ‘This place,’ Snoop cut it, ‘this place has figured it out. You see all this green shit everywhere?’ He pointed at the rustling leaves dangling from every level, on the platforms either end of the walkway. ‘That’s all food. That’s all grow-again, come-again food. That’s like making a real future.’ He jabbed a finger at Maxwell and turned to address the boys. ‘And you know what he is, what the Chief is? He’s like a piece of the past. The use-it-up past. And when whatever shit lying around is all used up we’ll be fucked, too.’

  ‘He’s right!’ called out Jenny. ‘There’s no future in this.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you start,’ snapped Maxwell. He pulled a handgun out of the pocket of his anorak and levelled it at Jenny. ‘You really need to shut up now.’

  Snoop pulled the assault rifle from his shoulder and aimed at Maxwell.

  ‘Chief!’

  Maxwell turned to look at him. ‘EDWARD? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?’

  ‘You should lower the gun,’ replied Snoop hesitantly. ‘Lower the fucking gun!’

  ‘Or what, Edward?’

  ‘My name’s SNOOP, not EDWARD!’ he replied.

  Maxwell laughed. ‘No, you’re just a stupid twat called Edward, who thinks he’s some sort of hip-hop gangster!’

  ‘Fuck you!’ A dozen rounds ricocheted up the walkway, spinning Maxwell and knocking him heavily onto his back.

  Leona was on her feet. ‘MUM!!!’ she screamed. She grabbed the gun lying beside Brooks, leaped over the storage drum and into the walkway cage.

  ‘NO!!! NO-NO-NO!’ The scream filled her ears as she watched her mum’s knees slowly begin to buckle. She collapsed on her haunches, sitting uncomfortably on her bottom, swaying unsteadily, both of her hands clasped over her left breast.

  Leona clattered down the walkway as Snoop looked on in confounded silence. She slewed to a halt beside her mother. ‘Oh, God, Mum, no!’

  Jenny looked up at her, with an expression of puzzlement. ‘I think I got hit,’ she said matter-of-factly. She looked down at her hands, both clamped over a small hole, several inches below her collar bone, that was vigorously pushing blood out between her spread fingers.

  Leona dropped to her knees and pressed her hand against the wound, three hands, hers and Mum’s, all trying to do the same futile thing; stem the flow.

  ‘Mum . . . Mum . . . Mum,’ she whimpered. Jenny wobbled sideways like a drunkard and Leona caught her in her arms. ‘Mum . . . please!!!’ She looked up. ‘WHERE’S Tami? WHERE’S TAMI?!’

  She looked down at her. ‘Mum . . . please . . . don’t . . .’

  Jenny looked crossly at her. ‘Oh for God’s sake, Leona, you’ve got my mess all over your hands.’

  Leona shook her head and cradled her mother’s. ‘Mum, don’t do this.’ Her voice broke into a pitiful whine. ‘Mummy . . . please . . .’

  ‘I’m all right, honey . . . just a bit tired . . .’

  Jenny’s head began to loll heavily against her daughter’s arms. ‘Just like your father . . . so messy . . .’

  ‘Like you, Mum,’ she whispered, ‘I’m like you, Mum.’

  ‘. . . You’re . . . you . . . like . . . ?’ She wasn’t making sense, her eyes were losing focus, starting to roll to one side as a single line of dark blood emerged from one nostril and streamed down across the bumps of her scarred cheek.

  ‘You’re so strong, Mummy.’

  ‘. . . Hannah? Now be a good girl . . . just . . .’

  Her head kinked over slowly to one side and her eyes seemed to be regarding the sea below, visible through the walkway grating, softly swirling eddies between the rig legs. One last breath came out as a protracted sigh of relief.

  Then she was gone.

  It was quiet and still there, a hundred feet above the grey void. A breeze rustled through the wire and whipped playfully with the corner of Jenny’s tan cardigan. Leona heard the clang of feet slowly approaching and looked up to see the tall black kid in a tracksuit approaching her. He wore an orange vest with the fading word ‘staff’ stencilled across it and wore several heavy gold chains round his neck. He was holding a gun in both hands. It wasn’t pointed at her, it was pointed down. No threat. Instead, he looked almost
chastened; like a schoolboy asking for his ball back having broken a pane of glass in a greenhouse.

  She vaguely recognised him through a foggy recall of the aftermath in that small room that stank of her own faeces.

  ‘That your mum?’ he said quietly, not seeming to recognise her. ‘I’m sorry. Real . . . real sorry what just happened. Don’t know if it was me hit her . . . or . . .’ He glanced at Maxwell’s body, skewed awkwardly across the walkway, the gun still held in his hand. He might have fired it, might not have.

  Leona could see the boys gathered beyond him at the mouth of the walkway, looking much the same way as he did. Lost. Not sure what should happen next.

  More fighting? Or something else?

  No longer Super Army Soldiers . . . just lost boys.

  ‘Yeah.’ Leona nodded slowly, stroking her mother’s scarred cheek. ‘Yeah, that was my mum.’

  The boy squatted down beside her and reached for one of Jenny’s wrists, feeling for a pulse. Leona already knew she was gone. Perhaps to somewhere she’d be happy. Perhaps not.

  She pulled herself to her feet. ‘All of you,’ she croaked. She cleared her throat, dry as parchment, hawked, spat and tried again. ‘All of you boys,’ she said, her voice louder, stronger.

  ‘Why don’t you put down those guns?’

  Epilogue

  I look back now and realise how different things might be today if we’d been overrun by that mad bastard’s boy army. We just wouldn’t have survived under Maxwell. Him and his army would probably have taken what they wanted and moved on like a horde of locusts.

  But something happened on those rigs that morning. Something quite remarkable. Leona Sutherland shamed those boys into putting down their guns. She shamed them into taking off their orange jacket uniform. That morning, she stood up and stared them all in the eyes and somehow made them see the truth . . . that their guns and swagger, their gold chains, their rap-star nicknames were all just a pitiful, needy, grasping for the past.

  She made them see that. That there was no future in it. Fighting over the scraps of what remained, the last tins, the last bottles, the last drops of oil.

  I saw her transform there and then. Become every bit as strong as her mother. Perhaps even stronger. I saw her stare at those boys until they could only look at their own feet in shame.

  A year and a half after that battle on the gas platforms, the last of the moving ashore was completed and the area around Bracton became our home; the soldier boys, the women, the workers and the steady trickle of newcomers - those that had heard the country was rebuilding itself here in East Anglia - all of us working together.

  She led that unlikely collaboration for nearly thirty years.

  She’s dead now, Leona.

  Died ten years ago from cancer. Still, we had a wonderful life together. I wake up every morning missing her. Then I open my eyes and realise I’m living out my days in a world that is a reflection of her. So in a way, she’s not gone. She’s all around me.

  I was looking the other day through my old diaries. And I found an entry written not long after we’d started the move ashore. She’d just discovered she was pregnant. I remember asking her what she’d want to call our baby and she said she already knew what names she was going to call it, boy or girl. She was like that . . . bossy sometimes. So certain and so clear in mind.

  But I think it was knowing she was pregnant - that was the source of her determination and strength in those tough early days after we moved from the rigs; when there was so much to do and so many things that could still have gone wrong for us. It was that determination to be damned sure our children inherited something better that fuelled her, drove her on, gave her such seemingly endless energy.

  And I think our son has inherited a much better world . . . and, of course, so have his children: Jacob and Hannah. Here I am at the tail end of my life, and I can see that now; looking around at windmills, and roads filled with bicycles and people having so much less, yet living more. People no longer tucked away in isolation surrounded by an Aladdin’s cave of mail-ordered possessions; no longer tapping anonymously on keyboards to an internet world of other lonely people. Instead, I see people tending allotments together, repairing things together, reaching out and connecting with each other in a way that never happened before the oil age crashed and burned.

  I’m living in the world Leona and her mother made. I can honestly say that I see a little bit of her in everything around me . . . and not just in the occasionally stubborn expression on our granddaughter’s face. She’s here in spirit, I suppose, in the way we all live now.

  When young people ask me how hard it was just after the crash, how did we manage to get through those tough, dark times and build things anew, I find myself thinking that it was ‘power’ that got us here. Not the sort of power that comes from burning oil or gas, or spinning turbines, but the kind that comes from a mother who wants something better for her children.

  There truly is nothing more powerful, more world-changing, more complete than a mother’s love.

  Adam Brooks

  21 December, 51 AC

  Author Notes

  Afterlight was something I wanted to write directly after I finished writing Last Light. The temptation I suppose was to follow straight on with the tale, following the Sutherland family out of London and into whatever post-oil survival nightmare awaited them. But, I decided to let another book intercede (October Skies) which took me somewhere else for a while and allowed me the time and distance to think about how I was going to conclude the Sutherland’s tale.

  The main result of giving myself that time was the decision to follow on ten years after the events of Last Light. And I’m so glad I did that because I think, certainly from my point of view, it’s been a far more interesting exercise looking at the world long after the dust has settled, than just to write a continuation of the unravelling chaos of a collapsing world. Anyway, we’ve seen all that before in countless zombie movies; all those chaotic scenes set in shopping malls and petrol stations.

  This was a chance to see what a world without oil looked like. And quite a sobering experience it’s been. I never really imagined it being the commune-living-in-the-Welsh-valleys post-apocalyptic idyll that some survivalist types seem impatient to experience. Instead in this book I’ve imagined it as being a relentlessly hard life of grim endurance, where every day is a constant reminder of all the little luxuries we once had, and lost. Hot water at the twist of a tap, light and heat at the flick of a switch . . . a hot meal at the push of a microwave button.

  So this book has ended up being less about railing against our evil, greedy, consumer ways and more a swansong to those times. See, I know despite all the moaning I do about waste and greed, and consumerism and selfishness and this dumbed down me-me-me culture . . . that given a week in a wet forest with nothing but damp firewood and a diet of scrawny trapped rabbits, I’d be pining for these times.

  And that’s exactly what the characters do. They ache for that old world. They pine for it.

  Afterlight has certainly turned out to not to be a manifesto for the hardcore survivalists out there. It’s not a celebration of anti-consumerism nor a yearning for a simple smallholder lifestyle. Sorry, that’s just not me. But, what it is - just like Last Light was - is a warning that we can’t go on consuming the way we’re doing now. Simple maths dictates that this world won’t support eight billion people all wanting their TVs and cell phones and cars. In fact, if I’m being brutally honest, it won’t support eight billion people wanting something as simple as . . . meat. (Yes, in our time, I’m convinced we’ll all have to become vegetarians if everyone’s going to have enough to eat. And believe me, as a bacon-lover that’s a bitter pill to swallow.)

  Tough times ahead. Tough decisions ahead . . . and it’s unavoidable. Perhaps the only positive note I can tack on the end here is that the sooner we wake up and start making the really hard decisions about the future; decisions about how much we in the first world sh
ould really own; decisions about how best the third world can control its population growth . . . .then, the less likely we are to face a scenario like the one portrayed in these two peak oil books.

  But, do I have faith that everyone will wake up sooner rather than later and make all those really hard decisions? Pfft. Nope, can’t say I do. In the end, we’ve all become children . . . unable to delay gratification, unwilling to wait for our goodies, unwilling to do without all our shiny things . . . and content to sit back and watch the world walk towards a big crunch point.

  The sad thing is . . . even though I’ve had my head in Peak Oil for years and written these two books, I’m just as childish and selfish and short-sighted as anyone else.